Uprooted follows spoken word stories in the perspective of individuals whose communities and ancestral roots have experienced nomadic shift including immigrants, multicultural individuals, trans-racial adoptees, people chased out of land or whose ancestors have experienced genocide (Native people) and undocumented persons. These stories walk through the lives of those who feel Uprooted and how they plant new seeds of growth.

Appetizers will be provided at the venue. Seated room, first come first serve.

About the performers:

Southside Minneapolis rapper and producer Tufawon with smooth and soulful boom-bap expands on the themes of politics, culture, social awareness, and self-care that has defined his approach. He showcases the growth that travel and personal development have brought to his life and his work.

Jayanthi Kyle was born to an Indian father and a Native American and black mother and raised in Maple Grove, MN and Chicago's South Side. She formed the band Black Audience to open for Jim Ruiz at PalmFest. Kyle and Gospel Machine guitarist Wes Burdine wrote the song "Hand in Hand" for the Million March MN rally in December 2014. The song has become an unofficial anthem for the Minneapolis Black Lives Matter movement.

Hieu Minh Nguyen is a Vietnamese American poet born and raised by a single mother in the Mcdonough Housing Projects in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is the youngest person to have become a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His debut collection of poetry, This Way to the Sugar, was also a finalist for the Lambda Book Award. He has a second collection, Not Here, forthcoming in 2018 from Coffee House Press. His work has been published in The Journal, PANK, Vinyl, Muzzle, The Paris-American, and Indiana Review.

Junauda Petrus creates work for performance that thoughtfully and genuinely luxuriates on the modern and surreal Black experience, celebrating and curious of its multitudinous, complex, and dynamic sweetness. Her work is shaped by her urban upbringing, West Indian heritage, and connection to ancestral creativity. She has received the MN State Arts Board Cultural Community Partnership, the Givens Foundation Writer’s Mentorship, The Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellowship, and the Jerome Travel and Study Grant.